1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air conditioner, and more particularly, to an air conditioner for individual cooling/heating, which can provide fresh cooling or heating air to users, individually.
2. Background of the Related Art
In general, a cooling/heating device is used for cooling/heating a room space, such as living rooms, restaurants, offices, or the like, of which operation will be explained with reference to FIG. 1.
A refrigerant gas compressed to a high pressure and a high temperature at a compressor 1 is provided to a first heat exchanger 2, and condensed into liquid as the refrigerant gas discharges heat to external air blown by a blower 3 on one side of the first heat exchanger 2. The external air, heated as it passes through the first heat exchanger 2, is discharged to the outside of the room. The refrigerant condensed at the first heat exchanger 2 is throttled and decompressed to a pressure low enough to easily vaporize the refrigerant as it passes through an expansion valve 4. The refrigerant is provided to a second heat exchanger 5, and absorbs external heat as it is vaporized by external air blown by a blower 6 on one side of the second heat exchanger 5. The external air, cooled as the external air passes through the second heat exchanger 5, is discharged into a room to cool down the room, and the liquid refrigerant is vaporized into a low pressure refrigerant gas at the second heat exchanger 5 and provided to the compressor 1 to again repeat the foregoing process until entire room is cooled down. In the meantime, if it is desired that the cooling/heating device is used for heating the room, the refrigerant is circulated in reverse. Then the second heat exchanger 5 works as a condenser, to make warm air to flow into the room, and, opposite to this, the first heat exchanger works as an evaporator to discharge cooled air out of the room.
However, the related art cooling/heating device has problems in that, as the related art cooling/heating device has a system to cool/heat an entire room space, neither the air provided by the related art cooling/heating device can satisfy all individual tastes of persons in the room, nor is the amount of air required for the air conditioning efficient. That is, it is known that though a rate of air required for respiration per one person is 0.133 l/s in view of physiology, a standard rate of conditioning air per one person is 10 l/s in a case of general air conditioning, that is, the rate of air required for respiration for one person is merely approximately 1% of the total conditioning air.
Since the related art cooling/heating device is of a bulky and heavy stationary type, which is difficult to carry, transmission of a cooling/heating effect to a region far from the cooling/heating device is poor, thus cooling/heating cannot be expected in a case when a person leaves the room where the cooling/heating is available and moves to a place where the cooling/heating is not available.
In the meantime, the dehumidified air, provided when the cooling/heating device is in a dehumidifying mode, may make people feel unpleasant as air temperature in the dehumidifying mode is too low if the external temperature is relatively low in the summer season, owing to rain and the like, because the air is cooled to a temperature lower than an external air temperature for dehumidification.
The present invention is directed to an air conditioner for individual cooling/heating that substantially obviates one or more of the problems due to limitations and disadvantages of the related art.
An object of the present invention is to provide an air conditioner for individual cooling/heating, which is portable and capable of providing cooling/heating air at a comfortable temperature and humidity to users in a room, individually.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an air conditioner for individual cooling/heating, which has a constant temperature dehumidifying function in which air can be dehumidified without dropping air temperature so much that air with a comfortable temperature and humidity cannot be provided to the users.
Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be apparent from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.
To achieve these and other advantages and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described, the air conditioner for individual cooling/heating includes a front compartment and a rear compartment, separated by a partition plate made of an insulating material for forced inlet and outlet of external air therethrough respectively, at least two heat exchanger parts each in upper parts of the front and rear compartments and lower parts of front and rear compartments for making heat exchange with external air passing through the front compartment and the rear compartment respectively, first drawing means and second drawing means mounted in an upper portion or a lower portion of the front compartment or the rear compartment respectively for forced circulation of the external air through respective compartments, and driving means for driving the first and second drawing means, each of the heat exchanger parts includes thermoelectric modules each connected to a power source for absorbing heat at a heat absorptive part and discharging the heat from a heat dissipative part provided opposite to the heat absorptive part, and heat exchangers each in contact either with the heat absorptive part or the heat dissipative part of the thermoelectric module for causing heat exchange between the air flowed into the front or rear compartment and the thermoelectric module, thereby providing individual cooling/heating to a user and constant temperature dehumidification.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.